Update: As of 7PM ET, all links are now working. Please try now to download the new Bing suite for Windows Phone 8. It's not restricted to the US.

Today, Microsoft has pulled the sheets off of a new suite of apps based around the Bing search engine. Simply called Bing Apps, the collection of four apps includes Sports, News, Weather and Finance, including Live Tile support for Windows Phone 8 devices.

Based off of the same suite of apps for its Windows 8 OS, the new applications bring all of the latest news right to the Start screen, continuing the “glance and go” usability that Windows Phone users have become accustomed to. Indeed, this is the first time we’ve seen some real parallels between the desktop and mobile OS drawn and it should make using the two systems more seamless than before for new customers.

Watch our first-look video of the new apps in action and enjoy the gallery of screenshots after the break.

Video Tour: Bing News, Weather, Finance and Sports

Bing News

“Want to keep tabs on what’s happening in the world? The Bing News app for Windows Phone has you covered. With the new app, you have one comprehensive experience to keep tabs on the latest headlines and videos of breaking news. And the app is customizable so you can track specific story categories, topics, or news sources that matter to you. You can even rearrange the headline clusters so that the news that matters most to you is at the top.”

The Bing News app is a straight port of the Windows 8 client and is well optimized for Windows Phone. Users can adjust the font size to their liking, enable the Live Tile, and restrict background data usage to only Wi-Fi. Wide tiles support is included with HD level graphics for images.

The app is relatively fast and fluid to use (data can take a moment to download) and with optional Breaking News alerts, users can stay abreast of all the latest happenings. The app lacks any lockscreen support or the ability to share an article, which is something Microsoft will hopefully build upon in later releases.

Bing Finance

“Keep tabs on your portfolio and gauge performance of your stocks at a glance with the Bing Finance app which include financial news, market info, watchlists, timely US stock updates and customizable interactive charts.”

Like Bing News, Bing Finance acts as market hub on your Windows Phone. The Live Tile (wide supported) shows the latest DOW and NASDAQ numbers (one on each side) with a graph and numbers for a quick view. Users can customize the Watchlist with specific companies and the News section is similar to the Bing News app with font control.

Bing Weather

“Want to know to know whether you need to grab an umbrella? Now you can stay a step ahead of the weather with an overview of conditions including temperature, precipitation and wind.”

Everyone loves weather apps and Bing Weather is a solid port of their desktop version. The app features a live tile (sadly, not wide) with the latest temperature, current conditions and the day’s high and low. Launching the app will show more in-depth information like “feels like” temperature, humidity levels, wind and more. Swiping to the right reveals daily, hourly and a collection of weather maps, including Temperature, Doppler, Precipitation and cloud cover, optimized for regional and national views.

The app is well designed and while it can’t compete against the more full-featured pay apps on Windows Phone, it’s a really well done weather client. Once again, no lockscreen support in v1.0 is a bit of a letdown but we imagine such a feature could come in later updates.

Bing Sports

“The Bing Sports app is your personal sports companion letting you stay on top of the sports and teams that you care about. You can swipe through to see the recent scores, top sports headlines, game videos, photos, schedules, standings, extensive statistics and much more across most major sports.”

Like Bing News and Finance, Bing Sports brings you all the latest in world competitions. From the scoreboard (currently MLB in the US) to News to slideshow to videos, the app is sure to keep the sports enthusiast busy. Like Bing Finance, you can add your favorite franchises to the ‘my teams’ pivot to easily track their latest happenings.

Quick thoughts

Overall, Microsoft has done an admirable job with these well-polished apps. They serve as a reminder to consumers of the similarities between Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 and represent a sign of things to come as those two operating systems begin to merge in 2014.

We can envisage many of these apps coming pre-installed on forthcoming Windows Phones and it should provide a great out-of-the-box experience for new customers who want core apps at their fingertips.

When to get them?

Bing Apps are now available with their respective links and QR codes listed above. Note: these apps are very "fresh" to the Store, so if it says "Not available" for your device, try again in a little while until it hits all servers.

But what took so long? It highlights the plantforms weekness, Microsoft hardly likes to make apps for its own platform. Microsoft is like the kid that say's he is giving 100% effort as he walks of the play field. 100% effort would be running, not walking. Microsoft is barely walking to create apps for there own platform.

I have been waiting for this ever since the last update of these apps on my Surface RT. The News and Finance apps have become my goto sources of info. So glad to now have these on my phone.
We are getting close to a unified Windows Phone - Windows 8 experience. The only missing for me is a Windows 8 WPCentral app!

Same here, i want to use the Bing Weather app as my #1 weather app, but i can't download it yet so i don't know if it will be metro stiled live tiles or only like Daniel have in his review .... if it is metro styled i don't want Weather Flow anymore, i love to use official microsoft apps like i do on my Surface RT :)

I thought things had been quite around here today, was sure you must be working on an exclusive review.
Exciting to see this coming to the platform and bringing Windows & Windows Phone closer. Nice v1 apps by the looks of things, look forward to seeing how they progress and what else MS has in the works.

US only indeed... Rob van Uden, these apps are fully available on windows 8 for all European countries with content pulled from local news sources for those markets. Lets hope MS makes this available Europe wide if not worldwide asap...

Daniel, snarky is unbecoming of you. Yeah, I should have read the LAST paragraph of your article FIRST to learn that the apps were unavailable. And I should have remembered that its typical of your articles to do this...must help to increase the 'clicked on' totals you present to advertisers when telling them the fees they'll be paying, huh?
snarksnarksnark

I expect stupidity in comments from the anonymous public, doesn't bother me in the slightest when some fools attempt to insult me under the delusion that their opinion matters to me, but when it's a representative of the site, that's another story. Insults, sarcasm, or just general foolishness (as I view this instance) doesn't reflect well on the integrity and professionalism of the site. Daniel and others who write articles at WPC do an excellent job for the most part, but their participation on the comments has at times reflected their 'moody days'; as comments in the past towards others have been far more insulting than Daniels response to me, I think its something they should work to avoid. WPC is one of, if not the best, sites for WP news...its not too much to ask of their staff to be respectful of the people who frequent the site.
Unless the majority of you want to be insulted and dismissed as fools and have expressed to the WPC staff your masochistic desires, in that case, fine, let the fur fly, (dogs). (there, I cleaned up the language for you sensitive ones.)

Dude... relax a little... he was just joking!. Take it easy, Smoke something or sleep around a little. It'll relax you.
Obviously, I'm kidding. Have a nice day!
DISCLAIMER: I do not do any oth those things. ;)

Me neither, anymore, though I do miss having a good toke or two now and then... but when I'm high I get too talkative, can't shut up (no I'm not stoned now...this is normal... my wife has learned...don't get him started...and keep him off the grass!)

yes i can. "No longer being published" is a bit different than "not available" I was only reporting what was on the website which is different than the phone's store. So, go bother the 80 or so people who posted the same type of comment. I see you did post the same comment to someone else. Gees man! We're all here for the same thing. We're all enthusiasts and evangelists.

This is shit!!! US Verizon 822 user here and none of the apps will download!!! Am told it's either because my phone needs updating, it's not for my carrier, or not for my country!!! What the fuck?!?!?!?

It is pretty amazing how many people 1) don't fully read the article and then post complaints without 2) even read the other comments. People, these apps just launched. Give it a few hours for them to hit the app store for all markets. My, oh, my.

"This app is no longer published", i am in US, this is what i see when i visit the Windows phone store.
When i tried to install it on my 920 i get an error mesage that this app is not available for my phone.
I badly need finance app, old app was useless, would never update, i am glad that MS is developing basic apps.

i hope this is a sign of closer unification between W8 and WP8. I want Bing news over using the CNN app.
If the Bing weather app has a nice live tile similar to the weather channel or better i would get it too.

I may tend to agree with you but Amazing weather I think outshines the weather channel app. on the free end. high end I rather like Weather Flow. It would be nice if it came in two flavors one for the live tile and the other for the lock screen using the Bing images....